Bobby and I had a pretty busy weekend. Friday night we had a big Lord of the Rings event for the students. It was an involved game of clues that had students running all over campus trying to solve a puzzle. Saturday the Worship Cafe band had a concert which kept me in rehearsal from 2-6pm and the concert going from 7-9pm. Today we had some time to rest and our first missions trip meeting. It was encouraging to get to talk with some students about how much they learned about ministry since last year’s trip and how many are looking forward to this summer’s trip. It is now late Sunday night, my weekend is nearly over and I’m getting some things ready for the week– cleaning and laundry. Sometimes I feel that time is marching on and I am being dragged reluctantly behind it forced to exit and enter each day whether I want to or not. I don’t necessarily like living this way. I would love to live a life of Saturdays and have time to go on long walks, read, visit with people and not multi-task so much. But even though I face a new week of week-days my heart is thankful for all the people and opportunities that God puts in my life day in and day out…opportunities to serve Him. I must choose whether it be with my whole heart or not.

At the concert I got to do a song called “Unashamed Love.” It had a line that said, “You’re calling me to lay aside the worries of my day. To quiet down my busy mind and find a hiding place…for You are worthy, so worthy.” As I thought more about those words I came to see that God doesn’t really want me to have moments of quietness where I focus on Him periodically. Even though at first glance this sounds like a good idea or better than nothing at all. He calls me to have a mind that is filled with His peace and hiding in Him always. He reigns above all the busy-ness, troubles and headaches that any day brings and He will bring me through victoriously as I surrender my preoccupation with self and success, giving whole-heartedly all I am always to Him…for He alone is worthy.

When I came to work in the morning the light on my bookshelf blinked out as I turned it on. When I came home I was just about to make dinner when the light over my stove blinked out. Finding this to be curious I replaced it and-expecting a friend-flipped the switch for the patio light over our front door but no light came on! I was baffled! How could three of my lights burn out in one day!? I’m not sure if that means anything other than demonstrating the second law of thermodynamics…

I’m feeling rather lighthearted today with a small workload, the weekend ahead and a big Lord of the Rings event for Bobby’s students going on tonight. Last night my friends were over for our 1 Peter study and I was convicted as we talked about 4:11 which says, “If anyone speaks, let him speak as the words of God, if anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified…” This topic of watching our words proved very prevalent to each of us as we all shared times that we joke sacrastically, speak hastily and complain about things in our words. I know that if I thought of speaking as saying “the words of God” I would be so much more cautious and considerate in my words and probably spare myself from alot of trouble. I was encouraged and challenged by Ecclesiastes 5:2, “Do not be rash with your mouth, and let not your heart utter anything hastily before God. For God is in heaven, and you are on earth; Therefore let your words be few.”

Purify my heart to obey,
Train my tongue to give praise,
To You, only You Lord…

Today I was reading a book by John MacArthur and something he said really inspired me. He was talking about Romans 12:11 which says, “Not lagging in diligence, be fervent in spirit serving the Lord.” He said, “Often our failures to achieve what we ought result directly form apathy and lack or commitment. But this should not be true if you are a Christian.” He goes on to say that to be “fervent in spirit” requires more than just the feelings and emotion of being excited about something or the drive to accomplish a goal. He says that for the believer it requires a “Spirit-assisted resolve and persistence, not just human-guided good intentions” Some things have been happening in our life and I sometimes think if I try hard enough or have an excitement about it, it may help those things resolve or come to pass. But what I find is that I end up feeling discouraged and empty. This is how I act when I’m living based on me and what I think I have to offer to life. Living “fervent in spirit” is living resolved, passionate, eager and persistent after the Holy Spirit. This lifestyle leaves no room for lethargy, apathy, indifference or half-heartedness. It requires all my thoughts, emotions, hormones, feelings and hopes to be given to the Lord to be transformed and made new according to His will.

I got my Rubella vaccination yesterday. It was very hard to feel fervent in my spirit about a needle in my arm. I tried to get out of it all the way up till the prick of the needle. After that I had to go to work, the office is busy, my desk has heaps of work. People don’t come through. Circumstances let me down. My computer crashes. There are many things to not be fervent about during a day, but I can fix my hopes and thoughts in the Spirit and he will give me a fervency to live vibrantly through each day.

Last night Bobby and I went to the mall. I was getting my hair cut and he was going to the bookstore. As we walked along a man asked Bobby if he would like to take a free stress-test. Bobby said, “No.” Then the lady said, “Oh come on, I’ll take it with you.” At which point we began to walk faster! Bobby later told me how that booth is a ploy to persuade people on the idea that they have an unhealthy level of stress in their life. He told me, “The whole point they try to sell is in a book called Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard. Maybe you’ve seen a commercial for this book; it’s the one with the volcano on the front cover and the all-time self-help bestseller. And if I had bought this book it would have tried to sell me on the fact that all of my stress and problems in life come from my reactive mind, the hidden part of my brain that stores all of my painful experiences and uses them against me, the part of my mind that reacts and I can’t control. This is the religion of Scientology, the religious philosophy popularized by Hollywood celebrities that tells you “Only those things which one finds true for himself are true. In Scientology one learns to think for himself - it is a voyage of self-discovery”.”

The world is full of deceptions and lies and things that we don’t like, but we are called to live dynamically above these things. Instead of being indifferent I should strive for dilligence. Later in this book I was reading, MacArthur wrote about apathy, “Such a posture not only prevents you from doing good, but sometimes means that you’ve allowed evil to prosper. For weeds to flourish, the gardener need only leave the garden alone.” I know that I don’t want weeds growing in my heart, so whether it be shots or work or people or problems…whatever my hand finds to do I’m going to do it with all my might! (Ecclesiastes 9:10)

This weekend I noticed that the price for gas has jumped from $1.97 to $2.05 and oddly enough the two gas stations that I usually go to have recently been demolished. I mentioned this to Bobby this weekend and I started saying that maybe gas is so much that the stations can’t even support themselves. Bobby amusingly suggested that I tune in to the eleven o’ clock news to find out. We’ve noticed that newcastors have this way of trying to rope their viewers in to watch the six or eleven o’ clock news. The thing is, the local channels ususally don’t have anything big to report so we see a serious-faced reporter deliver in a gripping tone, “Squirrels being euthanized around the county, next at eleven” or maybe in this weekend’s case, “Bay area gas stations disappearing, next at eleven.” At this point the only thing I’m concerned about disappearng is the money in my wallet that it takes to fill my tank.

Bobby and I had a great weekend! It rained and poured so we stayed indoors and took naps, read good books, watched an Indiana Jones movie and shoppped at Marshalls. On Saturday I was looking through my day-planner and imagining what a life of Saturdays would be like. It isn’t that I don’t like what the Lord has set me to do, so much as I get overwhelmed by it all. This morning I read a quote by Abraham Lincoln that said “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.” A similar exhortation from Scripture says, “Be very careful, then, how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.” (Ephesians 5:15-16)

So even though I’m working on a holiday and have a full week ahead I need to simply focus on living one day at a time and as Bobby and Ty would say, forget yesterday, press towards the prize, the upward call in Jesus Christ!

What a blustery day–rainy, cold and a week-long forcast of the same. Along with the weather I am feeling gloomy as I’ve been coming down with something. Sore throat, cough, occasional body aches, and loss of appetite. After a visit to WebMD.com I was certain that I’ve come down with Rubella. A well-meaning paranioa brought on by the result of a recent blood test showing I need to get re-immunized to the disease. I complained of my illness to my mom especially since I’m not even German. But she convinced me that I have a mere cold/flu bug, to eat anyway and that viruses don’t specify nationality of their victims. Determined to beat this bug I’m drinking lots of hot tea, popping a Ricola ever few hours and have scheduled my immunization for next week.

I have been thinking quite a bit about God’s grace. How we live under it, in it, by it and through it. The good things that He gives are blessings bestowed on those so undeserving. And yet it the sun comes out every morning and He allows the rain to fall. The struggles and hardships are opportunities that He grants that I never would have even thought to ask for. I never would change the way that each day unfolds even though so many times I complain that things are not going my way like my health and the weather. He is the mastermind from beginning to end. If I live in the Lord’s will and offered all I am to Him I don’t have any worries how the days will turn out. Romans 6:13-14 offers an inspiring exhortation, “Do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law but under grace.” My sister and I used to like an old song that said, “Your grace never ceases to amaze me, never ceases to sustain me when I fall. Your grace is a wonder I can’t fathom, it’s no wonder I am always amazed.” I hope that I will always have people in my life to help me realize how good and gracious the Lord is to me and how I don’t come anywhere close to deserving it.

“Halleluja, grace like rain falls down on me,
Halleluja, all my stains are washed away, they’re washed away…”